The United Nations​—How Strong a World Force?

BORN in 1945, the United Nations Organization is now almost twenty-nine years old. Where does it stand today as a world force? After years of apparent decline, is it now in a time of growing strength?

The evidence points that way. Recent developments indicate that this global organization is due to play a highly significant role in future world affairs. Bible prophecy points in the same direction.

High hopes were held when the U.N. was brought forth through the San Francisco Conference in 1945. “The most important human gathering since the Last Supper,” exclaimed the New York Post in describing the conference.

The world had then just emerged from the greatest military holocaust in human history, its finale brilliantly lit by the devastating blasts of atomic bombs. The promise that this newborn organization would be the agency whereby all nations could unite in the interests of international peace and security sounded good to war-weary people. It inspired visions of a new era of progress and prosperity through an international cooperation unparalleled in the past.

During the early years, the U.N. captured world attention. The setting up of the Republic of Israel, the Kashmir border dispute between India and Pakistan, the outbreak of war in Korea, the Suez Canal incident and similar events kept the U.N. on the front page of newspapers around the world. It scored some successes​—‘keeping the lid on’ in several potentially explosive situations, serving as the means for bringing about truces in some cases and an early settlement of conflict in others. Its gleaming headquarters on the East River in Manhattan became a major tourist attraction.

DECLINE BEGINS

Then, during the 1960’s, the U.N. began a slide into relative obscurity, fading from public attention. By 1970 it was with sarcasm being referred to by some as the “East River Debating Society,” a “propaganda platform,” and an “international psychiatrist’s couch” where nations went to voice their complaints. Its visitors’ galleries were largely empty. Press coverage dwindled. For a time the U.N. was even in danger of financial bankruptcy because of lack of support from member nations.

True, U.N. agencies, such as the World Health Organization, the World Bank, the Food and Agriculture Organization and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, were all achieving notable advances in far-flung areas of the earth. But the U.N. was designed to be primarily a political instrument. And it was in the field of world politics that its greatest weakness seemed evident.

The organization, of course, had built-in limitations and weaknesses from its very formation. As the 1970 World Book Encyclopedia states: “The UN is not a world government. Normally, it can only make studies and recommendations.” This is particularly true of the General Assembly, the main body of the organization, which can draw up and pass resolutions​—but resolutions which are not binding on the organization’s membership.

The fifteen-member Security Council has greater initiative and can make decisions that are binding. However, each of its five permanent members (the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, France and China) holds the power of veto.

The present U.N. secretary-general, Kurt Waldheim, summed up the problem in saying:

“You must not expect the United Nations to accomplish miracles. We are made up of sovereign nations. We can only accomplish what our member nations allow us to accomplish.”

Unity has been the critical factor for any decisive action by the giant organization. And within one year of its formation, the unity of the United Nations was largely in name only. The “cold war” pitted the Communist nations against the Western powers.

We need to remember that the U.N.’s composition back in 1945 was vastly different from what it has become today. The original charter members then numbered fifty-one. Of these, twenty-two were in the western hemisphere (including the United States and Canada), about a dozen others were from western Europe and the British Commonwealth of Nations. Among the remainder, there was only a handful of Communist countries and neutrals.

Thus, most of the U.N.’s members were allies of the United States, and for many years the way the United States voted was the way the majority voted. This preponderance of power for the Western nations placed the Communist bloc and its leader, the Soviet Union, in a disagreeable position. That was a major reason why the Soviet Union used its power to veto Security Council measures more than a hundred times in the first two decades of the U.N.’s existence. By the 1960’s the picture had undergone a dramatic change. The bright hopes were flickering, weakening.

A KEY FACTOR IN THE DECLINE

During the first five years of the organization’s life, only nine new members were admitted, bringing the membership total up to 60. But by 1960 there were 99 members. Today there are 135. The vast majority of new members have come from Asia and Africa (where onetime imperial colonies have steadily been gaining independence, often with the U.N.’s help). This change in composition proved a key factor in the U.N.’s decline from world prominence. Why?

On the one hand, this expansion made the organization truly global. At the same time, however, Western influence underwent steady erosion. Zeal and enthusiasm for the organization waned, notably in the United States.

A major cause of disenchantment involved the voting in the General Assembly. There any of the now abundant small countries, some of which have a population of less than a million inhabitants, had a voting power equal to that of nations the size of England, Brazil, the United States or the Soviet Union. The “superpowers” often found this frustrating.

The past decade has brought the ascendancy of the Afro-Asian states to a majority status in the U.N. (more than 70 out of the 135 members). This undoubtedly was a strong factor in the success of the twenty-year-long movement to admit Communist China as a member, with its enormous population of some 800,000,000 persons. Its entrance in 1971 to a permanent position on the Security Council in the place of Nationalist China also contributed to the U.N.’s radically changed aspect. Clearly, things would never return to the way they were during the global organization’s infancy.

Despite expansion, to the world’s view there was no notable sign of renewed strength of the U.N. The so-called “Third World,” made up of the poorer, “developing” nations, had come into the extraordinary position of being able to put resolutions through the General Assembly in the face of opposition from the “superpowers.” But the “Third World” nations did not have the means to give “muscle” to these resolutions. The general state of frustration continued and the giant organization twitched, groaned and shouted, but generally could not coordinate its strength for decisive action.

Thus, as a Life magazine editorial in 1970 expressed it: “National self-interest is still the common denominator of international politics, and real power resides where it always has​—with the governments and military forces of great powers.”

Why, then, is there reason to believe that the United Nations is now experiencing a resurgence of power? What factors contribute to this? What part will this global organization yet play in the future of all mankind?

[Map on page 549]

(For fully formatted text, see publication)

The area of the earth in color represents U.N. members or territories and trust territories of U.N. members. The few areas in white represent nonmember nations

WHEN THE U.N. EXPANDED TO 135 MEMBER NATIONS, IT MADE THE ORGANIZATION TRULY GLOBAL. THIS HAS GREATLY CHANGED THE U.N. FROM AN ORGANIZATION MADE UP MOSTLY OF WESTERN NATIONS TO ONE IN WHICH THE AFRO-ASIAN STATES ARE IN THE MAJORITY

What Does the Future Hold for the United Nations?

THE United Nations is evidently entering an era of renewed vigor and prominence on the world scene. In the near future it will be involved in events of world-shaking impact. Why is this so?

The Middle East conflict in October of 1973 and its aftermath helped to restore much of the U.N.’s prestige. True, the big powers played dominant roles in the truce arrangements between Israel, Egypt and Syria. But as Finnish historian Max Jakobson writes in the Saturday Review/​-World (March 23, 1974):

“Even the superpowers found that they could not do entirely without the United Nations. The cease-fire agreement negotiated . . . was legitimized by the [U.N.] Security Council. Supervision on the ground was provided by the United Nations. The sight of the blue berets along the banks of the Suez Canal revived faith among the believers: The United Nations was needed after all.”

Of U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim’s designation as chairman of the Middle East peace conference, U.N. reporter Anthony Astrachan says:

“His role as chairman of the opening peace talks in Geneva may be symbolic, but symbols develop importance, if not power. Moscow and Washington . . . now cultivate him to protect their options with the world.”

The more recent conflict in Cyprus also brought into sharp focus the peacekeeping role of the U.N.

PROBLEMS CLAMORING FOR INTERNATIONAL ACTION

But the Middle East is just a small part of the global picture. There is, world wide, a growing realization of the need for swift united action, internationally, to cope with the severe problems that now rise on mankind’s horizon.

Vast regions of the earth are now in dire need of food. But the grain bins of the world are virtually empty of reserve supplies. Meanwhile the world’s population continues its steady upward climb​—seventy-eight million more last year.

Poverty deepens. According to World Bank President Robert McNamara, 800,000,000 people now survive on about thirty cents a day. In other wealthier lands, runaway inflation brings soaring prices, and national currencies generally face their worst time of instability.

The destructive power of weapons developed by the big powers in recent years makes the atom bombs of World War II seem small indeed. Now, by explosion of a nuclear device, India has become the sixth member of the ‘Atomic Weapons Club.’ The likelihood of other nations following this course increases the likelihood that some member of the ‘club’ will resort to nuclear weapons in a future conflict. The destruction that could develop staggers the imagination.

Demands for energy resources are outpacing available supplies. The energy crisis has shoved concern over pollution into the background. But the problem of contamination of earth’s air, land and seas does not thereby go away. It continues and worsens.

Speaking about these problems before the United Nations, U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said: “Challenges of this magnitude cannot be solved by a world fragmented into self-contained nation-states or rigid blocs.” The situation calls for collective action on a world scale. But there are yet other factors enhancing the position of the United Nations.

OTHER KEY FACTORS

As Dr. George W. Shepherd points out, the world is no longer like a chessboard on which the two superpowers confront each other, with the European nations like knights and bishops, and the “Third World” nations like pawns. “That,” says this University of Denver professor, “is why we are seeing a revival of [the United Nations].”

Though previously the “Third World” nations were able only to make noise in the U.N. and pass resolutions that were never enforced, the big powers can no longer treat these smaller nations lightly. The recent Arab oil boycott showed the potential power that exists in the “Third World.” This is true not only of the oil-rich lands. Many of the basic raw materials and minerals​—tin, zinc, copper, manganese, uranium, iron ore, bauxite (for producing aluminum)—​that the industrialized nations depend heavily upon, come from these so-called “undeveloped” nations. What may this lead to?

An article in the German newspaper Schwabacher Tagblatt says it would be astonishing if these poorer countries were to resist for long the temptation to “throw down the gauntlet to the so-called rich nations and flex the muscles of their awakened self-assurance,” imitating the Arab nations. The article adds: “When we feel the grip of the awakened self-assurance of these countries around our Adam’s apple, then it is too late . . . social problems will arise in our industrial world with dimensions such as have never before confronted us.”

All of this adds to the insecurity that moves the political nations, large and small, to seek global agreements and action that will bring relief. Concern for peace and security grips the nations today as seldom before in history and has produced a dominant attitude or “spirit” that is moving the nations more and more to think and act on a global basis. Pointing out why they may be expected to turn increasingly to the United Nations as their instrument, former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Charles W. Yost says:

“The U.N., despite everything, has one enormous advantage over all the other devices for the conduct of international relations​—it is a permanent institution. Whatever may be the merits of summit meetings, regional conferences, bilateral and multilateral agreements, they all rest on the shifting sands of capricious and changing leadership and public opinion. Only the U.N., like national governments, is firmly based on a constitution and a bureaucracy which have lives of their own and which endure from decade to decade.”

WHAT BIBLE PROPHECY REVEALS

The conclusive answer as to what the future holds for the United Nations is not found, however, by analyzing world conditions or trends. It is found in the inspired Word of God, the Bible, and its prophecies. Present-day events and trends confirm the rightness of those prophecies.

In the Bible, political world powers are represented under the symbol of beasts. (See Daniel 7:17, 23; 8:20-22.) Re Chapter 17 of the book of Revelation foretells a composite political organization, combining in itself the remnants of the world powers of history. It is represented under the symbol of a seven-headed beast (each head representing a world power, as counted on the basis of its effect on the servants of the true God) with ten horns, the horns representing the totality of earthly political governments. This organization was to disappear from the scene for a time, falling as if into a pit of deathlike inactivity. Then it would reappear and move to its final destiny.

The United Nations, with its predecessor, the League of Nations (which entered into a period of deathlike inactivity during World War II), fits this symbolic description. Even as the governments represented by the “ten horns” gained increased authority on a world scale through association with the composite political organization, so too we see that even small nations have gained a voice, importance and power through their membership in the United Nations.​—Rev. 17:7-13.a

As prophetically represented, these distinct symbolic kings “have one thought.” (Rev. 17:13) That is, even though they disagree on numerous proposals, they are united in their determination to employ a human scheme for establishing lasting peace and security on a global scale. In so doing, they reject God’s own provision for accomplishing this: his kingdom by means of Christ Jesus. Therefore the prophecy shows this international political organization as fighting against God’s appointed King and those on his side of the issue. This makes inevitable the ultimate destruction of that composite political organization and all its members and supporters, thereby making way for God’s own government of earth.​—Rev. 17:14; compare Daniel 2:44.

But before it passes off the earthly scene, that composite political organization will fulfill another feature of divine prophecy. The Bible shows that the organization’s member nations have long been under the deceitful domination of worldly religious systems, these forming a world empire of false religion pictured in Revelation by a harlotrous woman named “Babylon the Great.” But prophecy shows that the political powers will tire of the hypocrisy, the meddling, the demands of the harlotrous religious systems and will turn against them, utterly devastating them.​—Rev. 17:1-6, 15-18.b

Strange as it may seem, just when this global organization appears to reach the zenith of its prominence, seemingly on the threshold of establishing a political foundation for peace and security, it will simultaneously near the point of its own downfall. As the apostle Paul was inspired to write: “Whenever it is that they are saying: ‘Peace and security!’ then sudden destruction is to be instantly upon them.” (1 Thess. 5:2, 3) And, although after such proclamation this world organization will engage in its most dramatic and world-shaking act​—the destruction of the world empire of false religion—​that act will not protect it from being destroyed itself by God as a counterfeit, a futile and rebellious attempt to substitute a political setup for God’s promised kingdom.

For this reason growing numbers of persons in more than 200 lands and isles of the sea, yes, people of many nations, now unite in placing their full confidence and hope, not in a political system of this troubled world, but in the heaven-based government of Christ Jesus, the true source of enduring peace and security for this earth.

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